Source: Lowry, Robert and McCardle,
William H. A History of Mississippi, from the Discovery of
the Great River by Hernando DeSoto, Including the Earliest Settlement
Made by the French Under Iberville, to the Death of Jefferson
Davis [1541-1889]. Jackson, Miss.: R. H. Henry & Co.,
1891. Pages 299-304.

Tilghman
M. Tucker, a native of North Carolina, was the ninth Governor
of the State of Mississippi, and the fourth chosen by the people
under the Constitution of 1832.

Mr. Tucker came to the State at an early period
in its history, and located in Monroe county. He studied law
and was regularly admitted to the bar, but upon the formation
of Lowndes, which was taken from the territory originally comprised
in Monroe county, he located himself at Columbus, the seat of
justice of the new county. Here he continued the practice of
his profession, and his law firm of Tucker and Butterworth, the
latter a bright and educated gentleman from the State of New
York, was for a number of years constantly engaged in an extensive
and lucrative practice. Mr. Tucker was regarded by his professional
associates as a sound, industrious and painstaking lawyer. Not
at all brilliant or showy, but with a strong sense of grim humor.

He was an amiable, kind-hearted man, loyal
to his friends, and a gentleman of unquestioned honor and integrity.
His genial character made him popular with the people, and for
several years he represented Lowndes county in the State Senate,
and always to the entire satisfaction of his constituents. He
was serving as a Senator from Lowndes when nominated for Governor
to supply the vacancy occasioned by the abandonment of the ticket
as well as of the State, by Mr. Hanson Allsberry, who was his
predecessor as the nominee of the Democratic party for the position
of Governor. Mr. Tucker entered rather reluctantly upon the canvass,
but after a very bitter and exciting contest he was elected over
his Whig and bond-paying competitor, Judge David G. Shattuck.

The only memorable public event connected
with the administration of Governor Tucker was the deification
of Richard S. Graves, the Treasurer of the State, for a large
sum of money for that day. Graves had been elected by the people
at the general election which resulted in the choice of the anti-bond
paying ticket in 1841.

The story of the deification and flight of
the Treasurer may be briefly stated. In the autumn of 1842, Richard
S. Graves received from Hon. Walter Forward, then Secretary of
the Treasury Department of the United States, a draft on the
Treasurer of the United States for the two and three per cent.
fund due the State of Mississippi, amounting to $165,079. This
draft was made payable to U. S. Treasury notes, at a future day
with interest, and to Richard S. Graves, in his individual capacity,
and not as State Treasurer.

Of this amount, $144,214 was paid him October
6th, 1842. This large sum was received in the treasury without
pay warrant or certificate from the Auditor of Public Accounts.
This fact, however, did not come to the knowledge of Governor
Tucker until the 5th day of January, 1843, when he was advised
by a letter from Hon. Jacob Thompson that Graves had drawn the
whole amount of the two per cent. fund, which constituted the
greater part due the State by the general government. The letter
of Mr. Thompson caused Governor Tucker to investigate the power
of the Executive, by the laws of the State, over the State Treasurer,
as well as the contents in the treasury. After a careful examination,
Governor Tucker reached the conclusion, in which he was supported
by the Attorney-General and employed counsel, that the State
Treasurer could only be removed by impeachment.

There was at that time no statute authorizing
the Governor to suspend the State Treasurer, or to remove the
funds from his custody. The investigation, however, led to the
arrest of Graves, at the instance of the Governor, in March,
1843, charged with the offense of embezzlement. He was arraigned
before Chief Justice Starkey, of the High Court of Errors and
Appeals, who presided over the committing court.

During the progress of the trial Graves was
in the custody of the sheriff of Hinds county, and under guard
at his own residence, when Mars. Graves appeared at the door
of the room in which her husband was held a prisoner and requested
to see him. She was granted the privilege, and in less than one
hour a person supposed to be Mrs. Graves came out of the room
and passed the guard going to her own apartments. The guard,
after considerable time, hearing no noise, looked into the room,
and saw, as they supposed, Graves in bed. A nearer approach to
the sleeper developed the fact that the occupant of the bed was
Mrs. Graves, and that it was the defaulting Treasurer who passed
the guards dressed in his wife's apparel. The next heard from
Graves he was in Canada, where his wife subsequently joined him.

Soon after his escape, Mrs. Graves requested
an interview with Governor Tucker. When the Governor called she
delivered to him $69,232.68 in Mississippi treasury warrants,
$92,000 in United States treasury notes, and $2,749.68 in foreign
gold.

On the 31st of March, 1843, Governor Tucker
appointed Hon. Wm. Clarke, Treasurer of the State to fill the
unexpired term of R. S. Graves. When the newly appointed Treasurer
had qualified and given bond, the Governor paid into the treasury
the funds received by him from Mrs.Graves.

The deification of the State Treasurer, together
with other reasons, induced the Governor to call a special session
of the Legislature which assembled on July 10th, 1843.

On the second day after the convening of the
Legislature, Treasurer Clarke submitted a report showing the
deification of his predecessor to be $44,838.46.

Graves' dishonesty, betrayal of friends and
unfaithfulness brought misery and suffering to many. He was still
living four or five years ago.

Suit was brought and judgment was obtained
against Elijah Graves, Thomas Hogg, William Perry, H. P. Barnes,
Maybray Barfield, R. W. Graves, James Bond, John Middleton, Valentine
Hamer and Edward Williams, as sureties on the bond of R. S. Graves,
for the sum of $51,865. The Legislature passed an act, approved
the 3d day of March, 1848, which authorized the Governor and
the Attorney-General to compromise with the sureties on such
terms as they could effect.

Some seven or eight years after the passage
of the act just referred to, authorizing a compromise with the
sureties of the defaulting Treasurer, his wife appeared at Jackson
during the session of the Legislature. Mrs. Graves made a pathetic
and affecting appeal to the Legislature for an act of amnesty.
She begged hard and piteously for permission for the return of
her husband. She alleged that he was growing old, was in feeble
health, and his only wish was to return to Mississippi to spend
the remaining years of his life with the friends of his earlier
and happier days, and when the summons came to him, as it must
come to all, he desired to be buried in the soil of the State
he had so wronged, and to be followed to the grave by the friends
to whom he had been so faithless. She represented him as being
truly penitent for the wrong he had committed; she alleged that
his only hope this side of the grave was to return and spend
the remainder of his days surrounded by the friends and the scenes
of his early life. She represented him as a broken, care-worn,
grief-laden old man, sorrowing over his past misdeeds, and with
the ever-present, heart-sickening yearning for the home he had
dishonored. The appeal of the wife for the dishonored husband
touched the heart of every member of the Legislature, and though
it was ably seconded by several influential journals of the day,
the members of the Legislature deemed it their inflexible duty
to deny her request.

With an additional load of sorrow benumbing
her energies and breaking her heart, this devoted wife, after
spending a few days at the home of her childhood, sadly and wearily
returned to the frigid region where she had left her husband,
an exile in the land of strangers. Mrs. Graves was the daughter
of a reputable citizen of Carroll county, and her connections
were most respectable. She doubtless has realized, in the past
forty-eight years of her life, the truth of the scriptural quotation,
"the way of transgressor is hard," and many a time
and oft, the lines of Moore, while gazing at her gray-haired,
feeble husband, have leaped into her woman's heart, if not uttered
in spoken words:

"I know not, I ask not,
if guilt's in they heart,

I know that I love thee whatever
thou art."

It is not known certainly whether Richard
S. Graves, of his devoted wife, are yet in the land of the living.
If so, Graves must be an old, white-haired man, bending under
the weight of many winters; and if Mrs. Graves is still a sojourner
in this land of sorrow, it may be accepted as a verity, that
"her step has lost its lightness," her eyes are now
dim with years and tears, and the rosy hue of early youth on
her cheeks has been succeeded by white hair and wrinkles.

The only other notable incident during the
administration of Governor Tucker was of a more pleasing character.
When he was installed as Governor, the executive mansion had
just been completed and handsomely furnished, and Tilghman M.
Tucker was the first occupant of that pleasant home provided
by the people for the residence of their Chief Executive.

Col. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, a former
Vice-President of the United States, a distinguished soldier,
one of the heroes of the battle of the Thames, and the alleged
slayer of the celebrated Indian warrior, the famous Chief Tecumseh,
was a visitor to the capital of Mississippi. Thus a visitor,
it became the duty and the pleasure of Governor Tucker to extend
all hospitality and courtesy to a distinguished gentleman who
had won honor on the field of battle, and achieved civic distinction
in the council-chamber of the nation. Governor Tucker promptly
called on the ex-Vice President, and tendered him an invitation
to dine at the Executive Mansion, at a day suiting the convenience
of the illustrious stranger. The invitation was accepted for
a day fixed, and at the time appointed Col. Johnson sat down
to a very elaborate and elegant dinner at the Executive mansion,
where the Governor had invited the Judges of the High Court of
Errors and Appeals, with sundry prominent gentlemen, to meet
the old warrior and former Vice-President. It may well be conceived
that the dining was a most pleasant one, and as the company separated,
each of the guests felt grateful to the Governor for the opportunity
of meeting and dining with the distinguished soldier from Kentucky.

Before he retired from the Executive office,
the people elected Governor Tucker a Representative in the twenty-eighth
Congress, where he served from some time in January, 1844, to
March, 1845.

This closed the political career of Tilghman
M. Tucker, and he never held any official position after his
retirement from Congress. He lived some fourteen years after
he retired from public life, and maintained to the last the high
reputation he had always enjoyed, that of being a kind, genial
gentleman of unquestioned integrity. He died in Alabama, April
30, 1859. His descendants are quite numerous in the persons of
his grand and great-grand children, all of whom are bearing honored
names in the records of Mississippi history.

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